ABSTRACT
There is an international framework for action in support of sustainable development. It is vast, complex and sustains a huge amount of diplomatic activity and engagement by civil society. It has grown over the years and is, inevitably, in a constant state of redefinition as our understanding of the issues evolves. It would be very easy, in writing about the international framework, to become lost in a description of its elements, their synergies and their dysfunctions. It would be necessary to review, comprehensively, the mandates and interrelationships of agencies such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the secretariats of the various multilateral environmental treaties, not to mention the raft of inter-governmental agencies dealing with the financing of development. It is likely that any attempt to propose improvements would stand a high chance of gravely prescribing the need for better coordination and integration of its constituent agencies and instrumentalities. The polysyllabic fog of international institutionalese quickly starts to gather.
